Brannon Veal Hi Brannon, thank you so much for your interest in Talking Stickers and especially your offer to consider pro-bono work!

I will do my best to address your questions. Firstly, in regards to lowering cost, our business model is essentially a software as a service (SaaS) model. This means that once we have the app developed (as we have), it's near zero marginal cost to add new users. There are costs for printing stickers but they are modest and can be further reduced by printing on paper and using a glue stick to make stickers. Our current business model predicts financially sustainability, so we have operational funding, at $2 to $5 per child/month. Simply put, the more students we reach, the closer to $2 we get and perhaps with massive scale we could get below $2/month/child. Also, when we get really big, we will have improved impact verification, which will make it easier to have third parties (governments, corporations or foundations) provide additional support for Taking Stickers so we can reach more children, for the lowest possible cost/child. The focus and objective of TS is not for us to become rich financially, but for us to become rich by impacting the lives of as many low-resource children as possible-from as many cultures and languages as possible.

One comment about learning language is that indeed Talking Stickers can help children learn a second language. However, this is not the focus or the primary benefit of Talking Stickers. Our primary benefit is helping young children, from low-resource settings, build their vocabularies so that they are ready for primary school. By 3 years old, on average, low-resource children have a 30-million word vocabulary gap over children from high-resource settings! Simply put, Talking Stickers exists to reduce this vocabulary gap. The reason being that this vocabulary gap often leads to many root cause sources of poverty and lost opportunity that are too common in much of the Global South.

In regards to your offer to potentially do some pro bono work for TS that is immensely appreciated! I passed on your LinkedIn info to our CEO and he is keen to chat with you to see if we can make a win-win situation. Lastly, I see your are in Harvard's Sustainability program, I graduated from that program last year. If you have any questions about the program, my favourite classes, professors, etc, I would be happy to have a chat with you.

I just sent you a LinkedIn contact request. Best, Brian

Chloe Varelidi Hi Chole, I hope your proposal is going excellent.

I just came across a WEF video that discusses the underlying psychology of why play is so important for younger children. I think the video does a really good job of validating the critical importance of play for children in marginalized environments...I just wanted to share the video-link below and wish you the best of luck finishing up your proposal. Cheers, Brian

https://www.facebook.com/worldeconomicforum/videos/10155529111206479/

I just wanted to say that I love your project! One line in your write up really resonates with me and shows the wisdom and understanding within your project: "We have understood that SINA is not a property to be managed but rather a living system with an evolutionary purpose unfolding."
Best of luck with this amazing project! Brian